Which has more scope, a business analyst or a product analyst?
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A Business Analyst, even going by “official” responsibilities, but as other answerers on other questions in this topic have said previously. A Project Manager will typically expect a BA do everything bar the PM’s job and coding/development. That has been my experience as well!
But let us have a look at one list of “official” responsibilities for a BA and then that of a Product Analyst.
https://www.zarantech.com/blog/top-10-responsibilities-business-analyst/
Top 10 Responsibilities of A Business Analyst
1. Understand the Requirement of the Businesses
A vital responsibility of the Business Analyst is to function with the project stakeholders to understand their requirements and translate them into details, that developers can able to understand. Moreover, to translate the emerging of question from the developers into details that stakeholders can able to understand. The key skill required for this portion of the process is the ability of the Business Analyst to refine the varying messages as well as the requirements of the project stakeholders or consumers into a consistent, single vision. This task sometimes includes certain political and negotiation maneuvering. Business Analysts often need to spend a certain amount of time in the meetings in order to save the development team from spending their time in understanding the stakeholder’s requirement.
2. Possibilities of the System
At the beginning of the project, the role of Business Analyst may seem as one among the software development team designated for the project. However, they are required to work with key project consumers or stakeholders as well as business people communicate and formulate with the vision of the business for the project. In addition, BA is in need to plot the scope and initial requirement of the project. The fundamental goal of the BA is to obtain the project concentrated early by transforming the initial high-level goal into something realistic.
3. Presentation & Public Speaking
For Business, it is paramount important to value the creating as well as delivering a quality presentation on the topics like project status, application designs as well as business requirements. Generally, people listening to the presentation of the Business Analyst are the senior business and IT management people. The main responsibility of the Business Analyst is to impress the stakeholder and other authority with their presentation, which would have a notable effect on the growth of the business.
4. Elaborate the Details of the Project
The most important responsibility of the Business Analyst is elaborating the details. This is where he gets into evaluating the needs and guarantee the implementation team has the entire details, they require creating or implementing the process. Most probably, this phase includes working with a wide range of stakeholders or consumers across the company to guarantee their needs, as well as knowledge, are combined into a detailed conversation about what they will actually build. In a conventional or a waterfall environment of a business, this phase is integrated with beginning the project and it covers the judgment of whether to fund the project or not. In many cases, this phase has taken a bit later, after the time and trust of the stakeholder is absorbed. Based on the project, BA requires a data model or specification as well. Regardless of how BA chooses to mention, this phase needs to complete when the stakeholder or customer have signed off on the agreement of what will get implemented and the developers have aware what they have to design as well as implement the project.
At several companies today, this project phase is taken in an iterative way. That means that the Business Analyst prepares the functional specifications and other requirements in a phase that are accepted by the organization and then the development team of the company designed as well as implemented. User stories and use cases are more suited to this kind of iterative strategy when compared to single functional specification. As a particular set of needs is preparing for the development to begin, the role of BA typically changes from an active side to a reactive side.
5. Support the Project Implementation
The Business Analysts involved in the implementation support through life cycle end. Business Analyst is not generally involved in the implementation directly unless they are holding extra roles on the designated project. However, they’re naturally brought in, if there are problems come up at the time of implementation, which cause some new additional needs to be addressed. This support could involve enabling a problem-solving meeting to identify how certain business requirements can be met provided newly identified technology constraints.
For instance, when redesigning a website, it is needed to form an assumption regarding how the author outlines would work. Then we found that the WordPress no longer allows the functionality we required. Then we are in need to revise the author outlines page and find a simple as well as an elegant solution.
As the task of implementation is finished, often Business Analysts need to have a more active task. They might be required to support the business to accept the new solution, which is being implemented. This task involves the analyzing how the stakeholder or consumers will utilize the new solutions in order to complete the certain activities and task. This task can also encompass user documentation, training or acceptance testing. It is becoming common for the Business Analyst to proceed to take part in the project via this stage. This phase is over when the project is delivered to the production environment and the stakeholders of the business are capable of accessing it successfully in their jobs. Of course, at this process of solution implementation, new requirements, as well as needs, are discovered and the Business Analyst might receive new projects to start and the entire cycle continues again.
6. Functional Requirements and Non-Functional Requirements
Attaining successful end product is one of the roles as well as responsibilities of a Business Analyst. He should determine what the project should do and how the project should work. In the terms of Business Analysis, these are referred as functional (What the project should do) and the non-functional (how the project should work) requirements. The functional, as well as non-functional requirements, serves a role in mentioning the abilities of the completed service or product. As the categories are matured, the greater importance is provided to the non-functional requirements. The main reason for this is that once the product attains its place in the real environment, you can start developing on what it ensures to raise its value.
7. User Acceptance Testing
The responsibilities of the Business Analysts do not end up with the identification of the needs and requirements of the project. Ensuring that the product is functioning well as it is designed for, in addition to ensuring the product delivered satisfies the user requirements is one among the most vital responsibilities of the Business Analyst. User Acceptance Testing is the only possible and accepted the way to ensure this. While the product in the development as well as deployment stages, Business Analysts should actively function on developing user-testing scenarios via testing approaches. The best indication of the user acceptance is that the product will offer the expected result.
8. Technical Writing, Decision Making & Problem Solving
The main role of Business Analysts is the building of business requirements specification, as well as other phases of documentation. They are in need to develop informative, coherent and usable documents for professional success. When it comes to decision making, there are several formalized techniques are available, including decision matrix, which can support to make business appropriate, quality as well as defendable decisions, which can support to offer the best service for the internal clients and enhance the performance. As similar to decision making, there are several formalized problem-solving techniques like Brainstorming and Five Whys, which can support to identify the root cause of a problem and define powerful solutions.
9. Maintenance of System and Operations
Once the entire requirements have been addressed and the solution offered the role of Business Analysts moves to preventing or correcting defects, making changes, enhancements and maintenance of the system to enhance the value of the system. They also involved in providing maintenance reports, system validation reports, deactivation plans as well as other plans and reports of other documents. The Business Analysts will also involve in evaluating the system to find when the replacement or deactivation is needed.
10. Team Building
It is an inevitable responsibility of a Business Analysts. They are required to lead ad hoc or formalized teams. They are in need to coordinate, structure, and lead these team members to make their role more successfully.
And now Product Analyst
List of Product Analyst Responsibilities and Duties
Coordinate with Product Managers to create business and pricing plans that contribute to profit and growth.
Perform design, development and management of new, existing or acquisition products.
Work with business team and key stakeholders to define scope, costs and timelines for updating existing products and implementing new products.
Implement existing product updates to meet the customer needs.
Assist in the deployment of new products.
Work with product design team to understand product feasibility and limitations.
Work with the quality assurance team to ensure that delivered system is properly tested and meets the product requirements.
Work with product design team to analyze and clarify product requirements.
Prepare and distribute product performance reports to customers.
Work with distribution partners to identify sales opportunities and to position products on key platforms.
Work with Product Managers in promoting products to improve sales and revenue.
Identify product marketing ideas and opportunities based on industry trends, current market environment and competitive trends.
Facilitate changes to product portfolio to improve competitive position and optimal product performance
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Alastair Majury resides locally in the historic Scottish city of Dunblane, and is a Principal Consultant and a Senior Regulatory Business Analyst working across the country. Alastair Majury also serves on the local council (Stirling Council) as Councillor Alastair Majury where he represents the ward of Dunblane and Bridge of Allan, topping the poll.
Alastair Majury, is also a director of Majury Change Management Ltd is a highly experienced Senior Business Analyst / Data Scientist with a proven track record of success planning, developing, implementing and delivering migrations, organisational change, regulatory, legislative, and process improvements for global financial organisations, covering Retail Banking, Investment Banking, Wealth Management, and Life & Pensions.
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